Bodies
by planet p
Summary: Chapter 5 Up! Really, really lame. Miss Parker returns to Blue Cove after an absence, but are things really how they seem?
1. Chapter 1

**Bodies** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Notes** AU, written in 07/08; set after the theoretical fall of the Center.

* * *

_2007_

Tiki sat cross-legged upon the sofa, eyes glued to the television in front of her. Friday after school daddy would take her to a little rental store in the Rada Complex and she was allowed to pick _any_ movie she liked! She always picked an animation. They were the best!

Miyuki, her best friend and of bunnykind, sat in her lap, warming her legs. Yuki meant snow, Teddy had once told her, and that's why Miyuki came to be Miyuki, furry snowball she was.

Teddy was sick, daddy always said so, and Tiki thought he ought to know. He had once been a doctor. Tiki was always surprised to see Teddy again, him being so sick, and never being better, she thought that he may have passed.

* * *

Tiki often thought about passing as she lay upon the covers of her bed, gazing at the ceiling, plastered with strawberries. Her sister, Thandie, had once owned the room, but Thandie was gone now, passed. It was just Tiki and her daddy.

Of course, she knew her mummy must have found someone younger and left her daddy because she loved this younger man better. Her daddy was surely seventy-something, and Tiki just six.

He should have known better. Kanoa, the register girl, told Tiki. People always said young people should stick with young people and old with old. Kanoa liked to talk and smiled a lot, but it was a happy smile that made Tiki warm inside. She would have liked for Kanoa to be her mother, but she was only nineteen.

* * *

Some days Tiki would visit Thandie in the place of long and deep dreaming. She sat with her legs crossed, huddled under her transparent plastic umbrella, forehead pressed up against the marble headstone. She sealed her eyes to the light of day and pretended she was asleep and dreaming. She prayed with all her might that her inner voice might make it through the void in the realms of existence, that her sister may hear her voice and respond.

She left a pretty pink rose for Thandie, or similarly some other bright flamboyant flowers, because Teddy had said bright colours were the most feeling, the strongest. She sung Teddy's nursery rhyme about a toad in a top hat who went to town to find himself a bride, her words lost in the humdrum of bleating rain.

Teddy had no tune for music and it was those times when he slurred that unsettled Tiki the most. A feeling of numbness settled itself in her chest and refused to budge one inch. She wished Teddy would stay away, but then, she never wanted him to leave. They could sit and read books for the longest time, and Teddy would come up with the funniest, stupidest stories because he couldn't read.

She remembered one day in August when he had told her about his Weiko. She had had no idea what a Weiko was, but of course, it had to be another of his silly stories. He told her of youthful love and the dreams of ignorant, wilful children, and how he had banished his Weiko for a fault that was not her own. Until one day that they should meet again, and he had almost forgotten how pretty they made each other inside because the cold was a lingering tempting friend. His Weiko did not recognise him and grew frightened, and he of her. And it was for the second time that circumstance drew them apart and this time there was no Boxing Day returns, because what was given could not be taken back, and what was planted could not be ripped out. So Weiko flew far away and he told himself it was none of his fault because what could he do?

Tiki suggested chemical intervention, her mind on great twisting vines and tall mossy trees.

Teddy had laughed at her and then he had gone on and buried his head in the back of the sofa. Tiki wondered if he meant to suffocate himself, but he was only sulking and she wanted to smack him across the face because there was always Kanoa with the happy jubilant smile and the pretty coffee skin.

Glumness was the fashion, her daddy told her, where Teddy was concerned, and had been for the most part of his young life.

* * *

So now Tiki sat watching _Mulan_ and dreamed of Weiko, for surely Weiko was a person, and as she did, she resolved to one day seek out this person and explain to her the circumstance of things and how rules and ways-of-being got in the way of feelings and distorted and twisted intention, so much so that a person was not the same.

If Weiko forgave Teddy then perhaps he could forgive himself and if he forgave himself perhaps he wouldn't be so glum and he may remember how to get better, because no amount of pills or chants could make a person better when they did not want for it, when they did not open themselves to what was already in themselves, just hidden, a vector of sorts.

Tiki believed this whole-heartedly, and her daddy told her of the power of the mind and of vibrations and feelings and belief. Teddy's pills seemed only to make him sicker and Tiki would have taken them and emptied them out in the toilet if she could have.

Teddy was still that little boy, her daddy said, glum little thing eager to please in any way for a hint of affection, a moment's attention. Everyone needed to know that they mattered, her daddy said, that they existed for a purpose, existed at all, that it all wasn't just some crazy dream. But sometimes people forgot themselves and forgot that others mattered also, and that made them unkind. All of life was connected, all of existence, her daddy told her, all of it interdependent, a closed system if you would.

Tiki thought that her daddy talked too much, but then again, in their closed system, he made up for Tiki's talking too little because she was young and liked to think and think again before she set her beliefs in concrete for tried and true was an ever-changing concept that did not factor in deliberate ignorance, inadequate knowledge and ingrained prejudices established over all those centuries and ways of being. Nobody could know everything, it was as someone had once said, the lesser of two evils, but was such a foundation of right and wrong as was in place itself right or wrong?

Tiki did not know. She supposed experience could only tell her what she needed to know, but then, only so much as one did not live so long as to experience all.

* * *

She returned her mind to the cartoon. The whole thing was a bother and she still couldn't get onto that maths homework.

* * *

Teddy came around after lunch, two o'clock. Tiki ran out into the hall and met him at the door. Norah Jones played from across the stereo in the lounge. She was Tiki's favourite.

Teddy brought jellybeans for Tiki. They were packaged in a little cardboard box with various Asian characters scrawled across the box, various white stickers slapped on the outside in English. Teddy explained that a friend had gotten them for him from the city, she was a student there, Luce. The box stated that there were several flavours including: coconut, aniseed, chocolate, strawberry, mint, pineapple and ginger.

Teddy and Tiki sat down at the kitchen table to see about Tiki's mathematics homework. Teddy told her about when he was a boy. He had always been good with numbers, even as a small child, he had liked the patterns and predicability. The problem with class was that the mathematical problems were all too easy, and he got so bored and frustrated, that he gave up trying, and that really didn't help his grades.

* * *

"You're a bit weird," Tiki observed.

Teddy smiled grimly. "Yes." He scribbled a problem down in her homework book and passed it across to her. "Do you think you could try this?" he asked, and proceeded to explain the algorithm and scenario.

Tiki frowned, gazing down at the piece of paper. "Is it hard?"

Teddy smiled. "No." He held out the pencil. He hadn't lied, it wasn't hard.

Tiki completed the problem and slid the exercise book to her right before Teddy.

"Okay." He wrote out another problem. "Now this."

Tiki took the book back. "What does she study?" she asked, not looking up from her task.

Teddy tilted his head. "Pardon?"

"Luce?"

"Sociology."

Tiki finished her latest problem and handed it back. "Are you very good friends?"

"Very good," Teddy congratulated and sighed. "To be fair, I'd have to answer with no."

Tiki frowned.

Teddy shook his head. "What about Tiki?" he cut in, before the girl could think of some new query.

Tiki grinned. "You know my friend. You gave her to me."

"I do?" Teddy asked, astounded. "And I did?"

"Yuki!" the child exclaimed.

Teddy smiled. "You're a funny thing."

Tiki accepted her book back and squinted down at the problem. "Yes," she replied in imitation of his earlier answer.

Neither spoke for some time.

Tiki broke the silence first. "Did you know my mother?"

Teddy watched her for a couple of seconds. He sighed heavily. "No," he replied truthfully.

"But then-"

"I knew _of_ your mother, polka dot, but I did not know her personally."

The child sniffed. "Honest and truly?"

Teddy nodded. "You have my word, dot."

* * *

Tiki sat opposite her daddy in the little coffee shop by the Rada Complex front entrance. A tall dark-haired woman strolled past and caught the child's eye. The woman noticed the girl at the same time the girl noticed her. Tiki thought for a moment that she might be her mother, but then she had no tan and her eyes were blue, and it was then that Tiki realised that the woman reminded her of Teddy. Tiki watched the woman as she approached, not bothering to hide her curiosity. The woman looked angry. "Raines."

Tiki's daddy, who had been staring blankly into his coffee, lifted his gaze from his mug and up to the woman standing before him, beside his little girl. He smiled grimly and addressed her by her birth name. "Melody."

The woman laughed harshly but she did not look amused. "Where'd you snatch this one from, then?" she spat horribly.

Raines remained unbothered. "Tiki is my daughter," he replied evenly.

Melody glowered. She laughed abruptly, thinking of all the Blue Cove branch had been and all it was now. It was practically laughable! "How's little brother these days?" she asked in cold amusement, avoiding the use of certain language in company of a child. Tiki frowned at this new piece of information and awaited her father's response.

"Alive." He sighed.

Melody grimaced. "Pity."

* * *

Melody sat and drank coffee with the pair. Tiki noticed that her daddy and Teddy's big sister both took the same number of sugars and smiled. Melody took Tiki for a ride on the novelty electric carousel by the rental store.

Melody walked around the carousel after the child as it moved slowly round in circles, music tinkling from the speakers, little colourful lights flashing.

"You're Teddy's sister?" the child asked.

Melody frowned, her pace slowing. She waited for the child to come back around, a deepening frown creasing her forehead.

"Daddy says he isn't well. I'm going to bring him flowers when he dies."

The woman shook her head. "I don't understand, darling."

"Teddy."

"Lyle?" Melody questioned.

The child frowned also now. She had no idea who Lyle was. "You look like Teddy. That's what I thought when I saw you. I thought you looked like Teddy," she explained. "I think I'll get orange carnations."

Melody gazed on into nothingness.

Tiki frowned in worry. She hadn't meant to upset the woman.

Melody blinked the wetness in her eyes away. A Parker was strong.

* * *

The child had Jarod's brown eyes and the tan could have easily been Jarod's, but those things were only the exterior. The girl _felt_ like Jarod!

It wasn't a pleasant thought, but there was no avoiding this one. It could be for no other reason, that Jarod's child came to be in the hands of William Raines. Exploitation.

It was with blinding clarity that Melody saw her future ahead of her.

* * *

Melody and Tiki went shopping for a new winter jacket, Mel's shout. Tiki liked pink. Mel thought it went well with her dark hair.

They sat at one of those courtesy seats and Tiki shared her jellybeans. "Teddy got them from his friend in the city," Tiki explained, and pointed in the direction of Dover.

Mel's smile faded a little and she didn't take another sweet. "So tell me," she began, "how is he really, _Teddy_?"

Tiki sucked on the jellybean. "He has pills to make him better."

Mel watched the child.

"They make him talk funny," Tiki went on.

The older woman nodded, she had a fair idea what sort of pills the child was referring to.

"Will you help me find Weiko?"

Mel frowned at the child's odd question. "I'm sorry, I don't understand your meaning, darling."

"Teddy's Weiko. He'll get better if she comes back."

"A girl?" Mel asked.

Tiki nodded, knowledgeable. "I think she must be very pretty."

* * *

_And this is as far as I got. What do you think (ignoring the lame title)?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Bodies** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_This is what I got up to writing for the second chapter, excepting the last two sentences; I added them on the end. I don't know how this'll work out…_

* * *

The next time Melody saw Tiki, she was sitting at a bench in the Rada Complex, reading a comic book titled _Diamonds Don't Make Babies_, which struck Melody as instantly odd, because Tiki was only six years old, and Melody wasn't sure she should have been reading anything with reference to how babies were or were not made in the title.

As she drew closer she noticed several things, the first being that what she had at first thought the title of the comic book was in fact the title of the comic book series, and that the title was_ License To Chill_, and that this was number fourteen in the series. And the second was that she was not alone.

Melody walked precisely and with quick strides, and stopped before the pair.

Tiki was reading aloud from the comic book and did not immediately notice her, and if her brother had noticed her, he was ignoring her.

Melody almost wanted to slap him for that alone. "Lyle," she said, in the same precise way she had stridden from one side of the expansive corridor to the other.

At the sound of her voice, Tiki stopped reading – mid-sentence – and looked around, and smiled.

Melody could not smile back at her because now Lyle – Teddy, as Tiki had called him – was looking at her too.

"Not really," he responded, and there was something very different – and very not right – about his voice.

Melody _did_ smile then.

"Hello, Melody!" Tiki cried, jumping up and slipping from the bench. She shut the comic book and held it out for Teddy to take, before running up to Melody and hugging her tightly.

Melody didn't look at the girl but continued glaring at her brother, Teddy/Lyle.

"Don't squeeze her so tightly, dot," he told Tiki, "she's not as strong as she looks."

"Okay," Tiki said, and took her arms from around Melody, and smiled at her again. "I'm so happy to see you," she told Melody.

Melody smiled at her. "I'm happy to see you too, darling," she told the girl, trying not to let her anger at her brother's words colour her voice. She was plenty strong, she – almost – always had been.

"Who's Lyle?" Tiki asked suddenly, twirling to face Teddy.

Teddy smiled. "I don't know, dot. I suppose he's someone Melody may have known, though I doubt that it can matter much anymore, it was such a long time ago."

"Okay," Tiki replied.

"Okay," Teddy echoed. He glanced past Melody for a moment and stood up. "Ready, dot?" he asked.

Tiki spun around and Melody turned to see Raines approaching, looking, for a moment, as though he were troubled. But only a moment.

He nodded when he saw Melody and Tiki turned quickly back toward Teddy. "Goodbye," she said.

He smiled.

She turned to Melody. "Goodbye," she said again.

"Goodbye," Melody replied.

Then Tiki turned away, turned back when Teddy touched her arm and took the comic book he held out to her, and turned and ran over to Raines, before the pair walked away in the direction of the video store Melody could see ahead of them.

Melody turned back to her brother, glaring.

"May I call you Melody," he asked, "or would you prefer that I call you Miss Parker?"

"Cut the crap, Lyle!" Melody told him.

He smiled. "I'm sorry. You just missed him." He stopped smiling. "I'm not Lyle. I'm Theodore. I'm your brother."

Melody laughed hysterically, despite herself.

Teddy frowned, pained. "I'm getting help," he told her, almost annoyed.

"My brother's name was Bobby," Melody told him.

Teddy frowned a bit more, just a bit more pained. "That isn't true," he told her. "Robert was…" He made a face. "Second? And Lyle-"

"What are you talking about?" Melody interrupted, amused.

Teddy sat down again. "I'm getting help," he repeated.

Melody turned and looked quickly in the direction Tiki and Raines had walked, but could not see them anywhere, and supposed they were inside the video store. She turned back to Teddy, who was frowning at nothing.

He stood up and turned to Melody, who suddenly wanted to take a step backward, away from him, and yelled, "Make your mind up!"

Melody started. "What?" she shot back angrily, but forced herself not to raise her voice to a yell.

"I am so sick – _so sick and tired_ – of the both of you!" Teddy yelled again.

Melody frowned. "Lyle?" she said quietly.

Teddy put his hand up as though to tell her not to interrupt, to keep quiet. "This isn't my fault, I couldn't do anything about it!" Teddy said angrily, and then he looked like he wanted to cry.

"Lyle?" Melody said again.

Teddy ignored her.

"Theodore?" Melody tried again, hesitant. "Are you alright?"

Teddy sniffed. "I don't think so," he said, and then turned and glanced at her slowly.

Melody frowned. "Please don't do that again," she told him. "At least not in public. People are going to think you're mad."

Teddy laughed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. "I am!" he told her, falsely bright.

Melody stared at him.

He laughed again, and put a hand over his mouth, eyes full of water. "I'm sorry," he said after a long moment, taking his hand away from his mouth. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Melody took a breath. "I don't scare that easily," she told him, thinking that even if it was all a show, an elaborate lie, it was still in her best interest to act as though she believed it.

"That isn't true," Teddy said, staring at the floor. "You are scared. You think I'm lying to you, or you're not sure whether I'm lying or not, and you're very scared. You're scared that I might hurt someone, or that I might hurt you."

Melody wanted to laugh in his face, but she couldn't quite pull it off, and she'd just realised why he sounded different to how she remembered. He didn't have the same accent as Lyle, in fact he didn't have an American accent at all, his accent was South African, but it was different at different times, sometimes more Afrikaans, sometimes more French, or Dutch, or British, or Zulu, but nothing at all like Lyle's accent.

"I don't want to hurt you, Melody," Teddy said, and his accent gradually changed as she listened, gradually became more like her own, until she could no longer tell the difference, as though he had grown up in Blue Cove, Delaware, just the same as she had. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

Melody stepped away from him, shaking. "Who are you?" she almost shouted, and her voice shook.

Teddy frowned. "I'm your brother," he said, pushing a hand out in front of him.

"What's wrong with you?" she yelled.

Teddy laughed, amused. "I was special once," he told her. "I was wanted." And he started laughing again, as though he would never stop. And then he was talking to himself, in between gasping breaths. "Stop! Stop!"

Melody shook her head. She couldn't think properly.

He sat back down and tried to stop laughing and catch his breath. "I'm sorry," he said after a while. "That was in bad taste, on all counts."

"Stop it!" Melody finally made herself say.

Teddy frowned, confused.

"Stop talking like me!" Melody told him angrily.

Teddy looked around at her. "You're my sister," he said.

Melody laughed. "Stop it!"

"What…? How do I…? What do I do, then?"

"What do you mean?" Melody asked, incredulous.

"Do you want me to… talk like… Robert? Or-"

"Talk like yourself!" Melody told him angrily.

He shook his head.

"I don't understand what you mean by that!" Melody told him.

"Didn't… talk," he said, and she suddenly felt too cold.

"What do you mean, you didn't talk?" she said.

"I… wasn't…" He put a hand on his chest. "Please… don't ask me about that…" he finally managed.

"What are you talking about?" Melody said, shaking her head.

"Don't ask me this, don't ask me that," he said suddenly, sarcastically, in the accent she remembered Lyle talking in, and stood up. "What a-" He smiled. "Damn!" He glanced at Melody. "Sis."

Melody glared at him.

"Endearing," he commented. "Sure is," and walked off past her.

Melody whipped around. "Where are you going?"

Lyle shrugged.

Melody ran after him. "I want to know what's going on!" she growled, glaring at him.

He stopped and turned to face her suddenly. "Why? Why do you care?"

Melody forced herself, excruciatingly painfully, not to slap him.

"I'm a basket case!" Lyle told her brightly. "Happy, happy, happy?" He smiled. "Tootles!"

"Wait!" Melody grabbed his arm.

Lyle made a face.

"Is Tiki Jarod's daughter?" Melody asked.

"Kinda, sorta, yeah," Lyle told her, with a wink. "Must be off. Nice life and all that- you know!"

Melody let go of his arm. "Does he know?" she asked.

"Does who know what?" Lyle asked, annoyed now, and turned back to face her.

"Does Jarod know Tiki is his daughter, and that Raines has her?"

"Wow! Yeah! I'm just supposed to know the answer to, excuse me, completely crazy, insane questions like that! Yeah! Uh-huh! I'm good! No, I'm fantastic!" He rolled his eyes. "But even I don't know the answer to that!" He smiled. "Hang on! One moment! Operator please? No, actually, I was thinking more along the lines of Houdini, who do you bloody think? My, aren't I privileged, I must say!" He glanced at Melody again. "Can I phone a friend?"

Melody stared at him.

He smiled, just for a moment. "What is the question again?" he asked, no longer smiling, but looking nervous.

"Does Jarod know that Tiki is his daughter and that Raines has her?" she asked, suddenly just as nervous as Lyle, who hadn't really sounded like Lyle at all, except mostly for the accent, but had otherwise sounded much younger.

"When Tiki was born Jarod and Nia decided to give her away so that no one would ever find out that she was Jarod's daughter," he told her.

"Nia?" Melody said.

"Nia Ofelia Pedron," he replied, then he listed off her birth date, social security number, job; home, postal and work address, several phone numbers – landlines and cell phones – e-mail accounts, various subscriptions to various magazines.

Melody shook her head. "I know… of Nia," she interrupted, before he could list off anything else she really didn't want to know.

"Jarod and Nia don't know where Tiki is now, they don't even know what her name is. They never gave her a name. They thought they would miss her less that way, but they always miss her just the same, except they never tell each other this, and they've never told anyone else about the baby, and they promised each other that they never will."

Melody frowned at the line of blood running into his mouth from his nose. "You've got a bit of a blood nose," she told him uncertainly.

He wiped the blood on his sleeve and frowned. "Do you have anymore questions?" he asked.

"What is your name?" she asked, feeling very stupid.

"Bobby," he said. "I'm sorry about the blood."

Melody shook her head. The blood didn't worry her. "I do have another question," she said quickly. "Why does Raines have Tiki? What does he want with her?"

Bobby frowned. "Lyle was worried… he thought they would hurt her, like Kyle, like Jarod… because of what they are. The other branches, they were interested in Kitty. He didn't want them to do that to her."

"I'm not sure I understand," Melody said. "What other branches, B-Bobby?"

"The other Center branches."

"The Center doesn't operate anymore, Bobby," she told him.

"The Tower didn't cease operations, just the outer branches. Then the Tower rebuilt new branches. Better, stronger branches."

"I don't believe it," Melody told him plainly.

"Believe what?" Lyle asked, narrowing his eyes. He made a face at the blood nose. "Eww! Gross! Like I needed that! Yeah, thanks!"

Melody stared at him. "Didn't I tell you to stop that?"

Lyle made a face at her. "I didn't allow you to talk to Bobby so you could ask him all sorts of underhanded questions, like who our father really is," he told her, annoyed.

"Bobby knows who our father is?" she asked.

Lyle laughed. "No, gullible! But that was priceless!"

Melody glared at him. "Was Bobby right, is the Center still operating?"

Lyle frowned. "Excuse me? He told you that? The retard who can't even spell his own name, told you that?" He laughed. "Wow! Him you believe! Me, you constantly tell I'm a liar! Thanks, sis! Thanks a bunch! Real nice, real sweet!"

"Is it true?" Melody growled.

Lyle shrugged. "I dunno. I gotta go." He paused. "He didn't hug you, did he?" he asked.

Melody stared at him.

Lyle shivered, and walked off.

Melody glared after him, then she frowned. "ARE?" she shouted after him. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'ARE'? SHOULDN'T THAT BE _WERE_, MR. FANTASTIC?"

"What are you talking about?" Lyle scowled, turning to face her, but not walking over.

Melody lowered her voice. "Kyle and Jarod _were_," she said. "Kyle is dead. I'm sure you remember."

Lyle glared at her. "I don't care what Borgman told you!" he growled. "And if you had a modicum of intellect, you wouldn't either!"

Melody crossed her arms angrily.

"Kyle is dead!" Lyle growled. "You said so yourself! People don't take so kindly to being shot and their heart being cut out! Whatever _Bobby_ told you, it's just another ploy for attention!"

"That sounds like you," Melody told him, "not Bobby."

"Who do you think I got it from?" Lyle half-shouted.

"Your _father_!" Melody told him.

Lyle stared at her for a long moment, then he laughed. "Of course!" he shouted. "It was never Bobby! Nothing was ever Bobby's fault! He couldn't just say _NO_! It's no wonder Lyle treated him the way he did – he wasn't even human, he didn't deserve to be treated like one!"

Melody stared at Lyle. She didn't even know what to say to something like that. He needed help, real fucking help!

Lyle laughed again, and brushed at his stupid tears. "I'm sorry. I'm fucking sorry. I can't do this people thing. I always end up fucking something up in the end." He turned, walked away from her.

She couldn't do anything then but let him, and watch.

* * *

_Sorry, that was bad! Thankyou sincerely for reading!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Bodies** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

Teddy didn't help her with her Math homework the next day. Instead, he just lay on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling.

Tiki resisted the urge to run to her bedroom and pull her blankets off her bed and wrap them all around herself, cocoon-like, and huddle up in a corner. Teddy was her best friend; she didn't like to see him this way, when she didn't know what was wrong, what she could do to make it better, to fix it, just a little bit, but she was too terrified to do anything, absolutely frightened her well-intended efforts would only cause to worsen the circumstance, and that she'd make it worse.

She could never do that to a friend, so she pretended nothing was wrong, she played the oblivious – heartless, gutless – card, and prayed Teddy wouldn't hold it against her.

Oh, Jesus, she was trying so much, so hard!

Teddy put his hands up over his face and made an odd sound in his throat, as though trying not to cry.

Tiki remained ignorant, set in her task, with great strain. Teddy didn't want to cry, but it was all she wanted to do. She wanted him to hug her and tell her it'd be alright, that there was nothing wrong, really; nothing at all.

Teddy turned so that he was facing the back of the sofa, as though upset that she was there, or that he was.

Tiki glared down at her activity book extra hard – stupid, _baby_ problems – and wanted nothing more than to snatch it up and throw it away from her with as much strength as she could muster.

And then her daddy was there, and Teddy got very still – her daddy was asking questions, quietly so as not to alarm or disturb her, but _she heard_ – then, after a while, Teddy turned around and sat up, and everything was fine, except nothing was fine.

She waited for Teddy to come over to her, to give her a special math problem, to touch her head, or her hand, but he did none of these things.

He told her daddy that he was fine – _everything was fine_ – and that the time seemed to have gotten away from him without his knowing, silly him, and that he surely could not stay any longer, as much as the idea warmed him, as much as he'd have liked to.

Tiki hated the way he talked sometimes. He was so silly, so pretentious!

Throughout this exchange, Tiki stayed within the limits of her self-imposed role, and when she heard the sound of a car outside – Was it the taxi, come for Teddy, to take him home, or somewhere else? – and she hated it unbearably. She hated every single car – every taxi – every train, bus, plane, boat, tram. She hated them all, because, in the end, they all took someone away from someone else who loved them, and, though they brought them back, never to her, like her mummy, like Thandie, like Teddy.

He was going now, and she didn't know if he'd be coming back. Maybe he'd go away, and he'd never come back; maybe he really was going away, and not just for an evening, not just for a day, but for life.

She'd never be able to tell him how much she hated how he sometimes spoke – except she didn't, really – she'd never be able to tell him how every time she said that Yuki was her best, best friend of all, she really meant that he was, every time, all along; she'd never be able to ask his opinion of the colour orange.

A burst of pain gripped her chest, and she nearly abandoned her playacting and raced to the door. What if he died? What if he died believing that no one had ever cared for him? Luce was a friend, an acquaintance, really. Melody got so upset at him; so, so upset. And Weiko was so far away, half a world away. More? She thought he didn't care, thought he cared much more for all of those nasty circumstances and rules that had pulled them apart from the beginning, in the end.

And now it was those nasty, dirty circumstances and rules making a clown of her, making her callous and tortured, and keeping her from her most treasured friend.

And then Teddy was gone, and Tiki heard her daddy talking into the telephone, but she didn't even care who was on the other end of the line to whom he was talking. She left her activity book and went to find Yuki.

* * *

Teddy stayed away for a week – a whole _week_ – and when he came to visit, after those seven days, he had changed. He didn't wear the nice things he had before, he pretended to be so numb, when he felt everything, everything irritated – hurt – him; when he sat beside her, he no longer sat close by her side, but with a considerable, tolerable space between them. He didn't look at her the way he had before, he didn't touch her, the thought never even occurred to him; he didn't smile, but he didn't frown. He was comfortably numb, but so, so uncomfortably feeling.

He hadn't wanted to come, Tiki knew at once, but maybe, just maybe, he couldn't face being alone, with just himself, with just his thoughts and his feelings, with no one to distract him, no one to draw his attention from himself, out of himself.

His eyes were suitably dull – they _scared_ her – his hands _so_ steady. When he spoke, he gave nothing away; he was pleasant, not alarming, but not interesting. He was one of a billion anonymous people, one of any person, any stranger Tiki might meet outside the walls of this – daddy's and hers – house.

He wasn't her best friend, anymore. He was no one's friend, not even his own. If he could have stopped, she thought that he would have.

She hurt inside, just to be so near to him, but _so far_ from him.

Her daddy had questions, but Teddy had answers. He always had answers, he couldn't not.

She saw how he pretended not to notice her daddy looking at him, pretended as though he wasn't bothered – it was only polite to look at someone you were addressing, it was what was done, everyone did – she saw that it hurt him deeply, that he wished her daddy wouldn't, wished he'd leave the room altogether.

She stood bravely, ten minutes after her father had left the room, and proceeded to follow him out, knowing, as she did, that Teddy would pretend it was all fine, knowing she'd hate every moment of it.

She found her daddy in the kitchen, confused with the coffee machine. Why wouldn't it work? He'd done everything right – and it still wouldn't work! Hadn't he? He thought he'd done everything right – it was hard to tell, the instructions weren't _clear_!

She walked up to him, ignoring the silly machine with its silly, nonsensical instructions, and stopped in front of him. "There's something wrong with Teddy," she told him in a low, precise voice, channelling all the energy in her into sounding perfectly unaffected, as though she were merely pointing out a defect in a product on a conveyer belt in a factory were she worked, but didn't so much care for, not like people had in the old days, when they'd been _proud _of their jobs.

Her daddy looked at her, still with his annoyed frown.

"Teddy's unwell," she said in that same voice. She watched her daddy's frown change, then he forgot about the coffee machine, and walked to the refrigerator and got out a little tub of yoghurt, which he gave to her to hold, and picked her up and carried her to the kitchen table and seated her in one of the chairs, then turned to fetch her her special favourite spoon, and placed it in her hand. Tiki didn't wonder how he'd managed to pick her up the way he had, nor did she want to yoghurt, but she forced herself to _want_ it. She didn't even want her special spoon, but it was her special spoon, and it wasn't the spoon's fault Teddy wasn't well!

She ate her yoghurt, staring at the yoghurty paper lid sitting upside on the tabletop – with the yoghurt on the top, so that it didn't mucky up the table – and told herself that her daddy would make it better, he'd still remember how, he'd been a doctor once!

The slamming door told her that her daddy hadn't made it better, at all. And maybe, he'd made it worse.

Tears ran down her face as she kept eating her yoghurt; she had to keep eating it, she couldn't waste it.

* * *

She stood in the video store, in front of a tall rack filled with DVDs, dressed in her bright green raincoat, despite the fact that it was a sunny day, and stared at the DVDs in front of her, reassuring herself over and over that she felt okay, that her raincoat made her safe and okay.

She didn't notice Melody walking up to her, or when she stopped next to her; she was busy thinking about her raincoat.

She heard Melody's voice, and turned to look at her, and saw that it was Melody. Melody was her friend, she reminded herself, but didn't hold her arms out to hug her, or go to her.

She remained on the spot she'd been on moments before Melody's arrival, and listened to Melody's opinion on decent, tolerable viewing material.

She reached out a green raincoated arm and picked out the DVD that Melody had suggested, and turned to find her daddy, aware that Melody was following.

* * *

Her daddy bought her something sweet and frozen to drink from Donut King, and, because he knew she'd object, he bought the same for Melody, and a hot coffee for himself.

They sat down at a small circle table that wobbled because of uneven legs in the food court. She should have felt like they were a little family, but she only felt the sharp divide between them even more clear than she'd even done so before; her daddy was old, so old, Melody was a woman, a real woman, and she was just a child, a silly, ignorant child, who didn't even have a mother, or a best friend.

She thought of Teddy's jellybeans from Luce in the city, sweet like the silly, cold drink her daddy had gotten her, and wished she'd been older, wished she'd been able to say something, and have Teddy take her seriously, not just overlook her, but listen to her because he respected her.

_Her_ Teddy had respected her, she thought. Before. She pushed back tears – the cold drink made her want to cough, her throat felt prickly and tickly and squished – and wished she could go back and make it all like it had been before. She didn't know what she'd done! She only wanted it to be like before!

* * *

Plastic bag in hand, with rented DVD inside, and holding her daddy's hand with her other hand, Tiki headed for the shopping complex's exit, thinking about the DVD, and the cars outside in the parking lot – all of those cars, she wondered, if she could count them all, how many there would be, but she didn't really _want_ to count them.

She was bus thinking about these cars, when her daddy stopped suddenly, and she lifted her face from the floor, and saw that the reason her daddy had stopped was because Teddy was standing in front of them. But Teddy wasn't looking at her daddy; he was looking at her.

He was holding a bunch of colourful flowers, which he held out for her, though her hands were occupied, and she stared at him, staring back at her, and she imagined dropping the bag with the DVD, and pulling her hand from her daddy's, and running to him and hugging him tightly, but she only stood there, and stared at him, ignoring all of those pretty, colourful flowers.

She stared when Melody made a sharp, hissed comment, and took the flowers from him and deposited of them in the trash; when her daddy let go of her hand, and Melody hauled her up into her arms, and walked with her past Teddy, out into the parking lot outside, and too bright sunlight, glaring up mutely from the white-painted strips on the concrete beneath their feet.

More than anything, she wanted to yell at Melody that Teddy hadn't gotten her the flowers because he wanted her to be his girlfriend – What was wrong with her? – but she couldn't react, all she could do was fight the tears and hiccups.

* * *

She woke late at night, when her daddy was sleeping, and walked to the kitchen to pour herself a lemon squash from the refrigerator, then walked to the door and leant down to place her glass down on the floor, and switched off the light, and walked back into the room, and lay down on the cold floor.

She was cold inside, and the floor was cold like her. She closed her eyes.

* * *

_Sorry, this is _so_ lame. Thanks for reading!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Bodies** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_2017_

Kristanna and Tiki had been best friends since they were fifteen, which, considering that they were both just sixteen, wasn't all that longer than a year, though they'd quickly become inseparable.

Tiki sat on her bed in her bedroom, legs crossed, speed reading the week's set chapter of her Biology textbook.

Kristanna sat in a chair beside her bed, her legs tucked underneath her, reading the same chapter. She licked her finger, like the teachers, to turn the page of her book, and glanced up at Tiki. "He's not your dad," she said. "You know that, right?"

Tiki paused in her reading, and lifted her face from the book. "Who's not my dad?" she asked distractedly.

"The old guy you get around with," Kristanna replied, then frowned. "God, tell me he didn't kidnap you from your real parents; tell me he's not some sort of sex fiend!"

Tiki frowned, too, for a moment, then laughed heartily.

Kristanna didn't.

Tiki stopped laughing. "What do you mean?" she said.

"He's not your dad – he's a creep!"

Tiki shook her head. "Of course he is," she argued.

"No," Kristanna said.

Mechanically, Tiki shook her head once more. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh my God, he's got you brainwashed, hasn't he?" Kristanna cried, then plastered a hand over her mouth, eyes suddenly fearful.

"Dad loves me," Tiki told her plainly.

"Molests you, don't you mean?"

Tiki flipped the textbook in her lap over and threw it from her, jumping to her feet on her bed. She pointed an arm straight at her door.

Kristanna laughed. She shrugged, then got to her feet, holding her book to her chest. "Whatever, I bet you like it when he calls you 'mommy' and 'wifey,' anyway!"

Tiki's eyes hardened and glinted.

Kristanna walked to the door and pulled it open, then stepped out into the hallway. "It's your therapy time," she said, nonchalant.

Tiki leapt from her bed and slammed her bedroom door closed after the other girl. She glared at the door, then kicked it with her bare foot. The stupid door was hard and hurt her foot. Tears sprung to her eyes.

* * *

Tiki walked barefoot through the cemetery where Thandie was buried, once lush and green with grass, now only dry, dusty and riddled with uneven patches of nothing, and brittle yellow and grey weeds. The dust rose at her feet as she danced to the music streaming through her digital audio player, as though she was the centre of a grubby whirlwind, dancing, dancing.

The dirt was hard beneath her feet, and the prickly bits of broken weeds and twigs stabbed and hurt the bottoms of her feet, but she didn't stop, even when she stubbed her toe on a rock.

She was the dancer on the rocks, on the cliff top, at the edge of the world.

Nearby, the ocean roared and cawed, telling tales of ancient times, singing songs of watery beginnings and watery endings.

Everything filtered down in the end, everything joined the ocean, joined the water, and the air, and the earth, became something else and found new life. There was always another life, after life had ended.

Tiki took a cigarette from her pocket and lit it up, and imagined flicking it away from her, setting the world on fire, as she took a drag from the cigarette.

She danced round and round in the cloistering heat, remembering the first time she'd met Kristanna at the school fete. She'd been the one reading fortunes in the stupid little tent, too small and too colourful, like her worn, old cards, fraying at their edges.

Kristanna had read her fortune, and foreseen, in the future, that they'd be best friends.

And they had been – until now.

Now, they were what? Enemies?

Tiki danced round and round, taking drags from her cigarette, 'til she wanted to drop to the ground, to the dusty earth, feeling sick, sick.

The music was deafening, and she laughed and twirled and danced and drew dust around her like a cloak, like a storm, darkening her sweaty feet and legs as it clung to her skin.

She hated the summertime. It was so goddamn hot. Unforgiving, like she felt now.

* * *

She'd cut her hair, she decided, shaking her head from side to side, as she perused the rack in front of her, filled with the latest music releases, and jiggled her leg to the music blasting distortedly over the store's speakers.

It was cool inside, thankfully, and she'd slipped into plastic thongs, remembering the mall's stupid footwear rule.

She hummed along to the music, flipping through albums at the rack before her.

Maybe she'd dye her hair red, she thought. Ginger, ginger, gingerbread. She'd always liked gingerbread at Christmas, except for the eyes; she'd always hated the blue candy-covered chocolate button eyes. She'd always picked them off first and threw them away (hid them under the sofa in the lounge room, the carpet was stained blue there now from years of stashing candy-covered chocolate she didn't want to eat; it'd stay there for days before it was discovered).

* * *

The kitchen was cold when she arrived home. The new air conditioner worked well, it seemed. It was so cold, that when she walked in from the blistering midday heat outside, goose bumps rose on Tiki's arms and she shivered compulsively.

She sat down at the kitchen table in the too cold, too quiet, dead kitchen. The old table's surface shone dully in the bright, bright light streaming into the room from outside, dancing in the half closed (half opened) duck-patterned curtains at the window, above the kitchen sink.

Tiki made her hand into a gun and shot the ducks, one by one.

She wondered what her dad would say when he saw her new hair, short and coloured a shade that was a mixture between red and gingerbread brown.

She grinned at the curtain. "I'll do ya, punk!" she sneered, menacing and sarcastic, and blasted another duck.

* * *

A thin coughing, choking sound drew her attention to the doorway, her eyes scanning the portion of the hall she could see and concluding it empty, and the lounge door closed.

The hallway was darkened, cluttered and smelt of dust and muck. Promises happy things… promises telephone calls, dust motes dancing round the pearly-covered light shade and tired, yellow light bulb like circus performers; promises peeling, scabby wallpaper, and water stains on the ceiling, new lakes, old lakes of brown, like all of the dried up lakes, once lakes of her childhood.

Tiki rose from the scrappy, old chair she'd perched in, uncrossing legs, kicking off thongs, and padded to the hallway. The sound didn't come again, so she tried to remember where she'd heard it coming from. Her feet tickled on the dirty, old carpet, thick with dust and scratchy with too much sand.

Gaw, they needed a real vacuum cleaner, one with real power! She treaded lightly, wearily, trashing pissy imports silently in her mind.

She picked a piece of old gum from the bathroom doorframe (she'd put it there maybe one or two months ago), and tentatively pushed open the bathroom door, and erupted in screams. "Look, freak, get the Hell out of my house before I call the cops and have you hauled out in handcuffs, or better still, Tased insensible! Are you deaf, moron, get the fuck out!"

The teenager ignored her, and she considered running back to the kitchen for a knife or something.

"My dad's a doctor!" Tiki hollered. "He'll cut your stupid little throat and sell your organs on the internet to fund my shiny, new sports car!"

"You'll be getting something reliable," the boy told her, his voice rough with coughing, she imagined, "certainly not a sports car."

"Shut the fuck up!" Tiki yelled.

The boy stood abruptly, and stumbled forward taking hold of her arms roughly.

She tried to back away, but he had a good grip on her arms. His eyes were almost white, the blue in them so watery that it more closely resembled a brilliant white. Tiki froze. "The fridge is full," she told him, stunned. "I won't stop you if you want something." What the Hell else was she supposed to say?

"Change into something sightly," the boy told her, releasing her arms. He shuffled out of the bathroom, and headed for the kitchen.

Tiki stared after the boy, unable to move.

* * *

She returned to the kitchen in a white summer dress, embellished with princess tulle and lace and shiny little bows patterned with tiny black Scottish terriers, and a pair of black high heels with little white bows perched on their tops.

The boy drained the half glass of vodka, and stood. He tossed her her dad's car keys and nodded in indication that she should go ahead of him.

* * *

She'd driven a car before, but only once, at a school-organised daytrip to a driving school, and not on a real, actual road, but she drove perfectly, imagining, as she rounded corners and stopped to give way to other vehicles, her dad's lifeless eyes, sure with every bit of sureness in her body, that this boy had killed her father.

He'd be in the lounge, behind that closed door, his blood slowly staining the carpet red.

The boy listened to her dad's strange old album as they drove; a song called _Save the Last Dance_ was playing.

Tiki's eyes felt tired and itchy, and she wanted to cry.

She pulled up in the parking lot of the diner the boy had indicated she should pull into, fit the car into a tiny parking space, and put the car into neutral, fixing the park brake into position on the old 1950s-something powder blue sedan.

Inside the diner, the boy ordered them drinks.

Tiki winced. He'd even taken her dad's bank cards, and he'd somehow figured out the pin numbers. Tiki imagined that he'd been stalking them for weeks, maybe months, and, all the while, they'd been unaware.

She wanted to scream until her lungs hurt, but instead she took a seat at one of the booths, and, when her cold drink arrived, she pulled it towards her and sipped it through the straw that had come with it. Beads of condensation streamed down the can and pooled in a ring around the can on the tabletop.

The boy had a coffee, despite the heat outside.

Tiki's throat hurt with the cold, fizzy, prickly liquid, making her cold all over. It was air conditioned inside, and she fought down a shiver.

She looked up from the tabletop, and noticed that the boy's eyes had changed. Now, they were blue. They were creepy, she thought.

The boy asked her what she'd have from the menu, passing her the menu card from the middle of the table, and watching her until she took it.

She realised that he sounded strange, that he had an uncommon accent for these parts. It was a British accent, she decided. _Homicidal Poms!_ she admonished in her mind, then wanted to laugh and laugh.

Her dad was dead, and his lunatic murderer was calmly taking her to lunch afterward.

"I'll have the warm chicken salad," she relayed, except, when they ordered, the boy changed her order to the mixed grill, salad and chips. She imagined murdering him at that very table, slicing his throat open in front of the waitress with a spotty butter knife ("Well, that'll need another clean for sure!").

The boy held his head when the waitress returned, a half hour later, with their meals. He picked up his knife and fork, having upended them from the rolled white serviette onto the tabletop, and muttered to himself in a foreign language. Russian, maybe?

_It'd suit up with the vodka_, Tiki thought to herself, busying herself with her own knife and fork. Was she really going to eat this crap? And right after this freak had killed her father, too? Play into his disgusting fantasy?

Her dad had paid for it, she told herself, and she was jolly well going to eat it!

The boy looked ill, but managed to finish off his meal.

Tiki took her time eating her own.

* * *

"I'm thinking maybe I'll torch the cemetery," Tiki said, crunching the gears as she left a Stop sign behind.

The boy didn't reply, but rested his head against the side window.

Tiki drove to McDonald's and got in line for Drive-Thru. She bought two vanilla soft serve cones, hers with a chocolate Twirl and pink sherbet topping, and they ate them on the drive home, the stereo up loud.

* * *

The boy cried when they stopped at the front door, and Tiki lead him into the kitchen to a seat, and walked into the hallway to phone the police, then decided to step into the lounge to say goodbye to her dad before the forensic team's people arrived.

The lounge room was stuffy and she felt breathless. _God, someone could have thought to open a window, couldn't they?_ She immediately admonished the thought. An open window was an invitation to any passing maniac to come inside. She admonished herself for her paranoia, then gazed at the floor unblinkingly.

No body.

No blood.

She felt a flight of panic take to her chest, and rushed out of the room. The boy's yelling voice made her pause, and start for the kitchen. She took his arms, ignoring the words she didn't know, and helped him back to his seat and that was when she realised it.

He had her dad's eyes.

Her dad's eyes exactly.

* * *

The boy cried himself to sleep in the sweltering heat. Tiki lay beside him, then moved closer and put her arms around him. It was still too bright outside for her to sleep, and far too hot.

She thought about digging her old camping mat and sleeping bag from the hallway cupboard, and laying it down on the kitchen floor and sleeping there, under the air conditioner's watchful eye.

She could leave the boy here, take a knife from the kitchen drawer, and lay down in the cooled kitchen on her sleeping mat and sleeping bag for extra cushioning and try to get some sleep.

She could, but she felt suddenly guilty.

She couldn't leave the boy because he was sad. If he had a bad dream, then there'd be no one to wake him, and he'd have to endure. If he woke and found himself suddenly sleepless, he'd have no one to talk to, he'd think the world had abandoned him in his fitful sleep.

She closed her eyes and prayed that wherever her dad had gone that he'd be safe and he'd come back soon. _With presents_, she thought, affording herself a small smile. Presents would be nice.

* * *

When Tiki woke, she blinked open her sticky, sandy eyes. She saw that the boy was gazing up at the ceiling endlessly. But he wasn't crying, so that had to be a good thing, right?

"You're friend was right," the boy said, turning his head to meet her eyes. "I'm not your father. Your father was a far better man than I. A good man. Your father would have loved you more than this old house. He'd find you a proper country school, with proper country views and country air and a good old-fashioned library. He'd buy you a fast car, teach you how to drive it the way it should be driven, teach you how to fix it up good when it got tired. He'd cook you dinner and be happy to do the cleaning up. He'd buy you wine and teach you how to drink it so that none of the boys would be able to put you under the table when they took you out."

"I prefer a city school," Tiki told him, "and I'll drink what you drink."

The boy laughed uselessly and put his hands up to cover his face.

Tiki touched his hair. "Loves me so much, love will lead his heart to my heart," she said. "Love works that way. Makes paths out of rocks and rubble. You fell down, but love picks you up again, dusts you down."

She hugged him to her and let him cry.

* * *

They listened to bad Country and Western and danced in the front yard with the dead lawn, windows open wide.

The sun was too hot to stay out long, so they went back inside later, to avoid sunburn, and drank lemonade and vodka and watched the mid-morning psychology talk show.

Tiki had had rum in the girls' toilets at school before – Moffa, a girl from her Chemistry class, had brought it – but the vodka was much better. It didn't make her feel sick at the first mouthful or make a shiny pink rash come up on her toes. She wiggled her toes and sipped her lemonade and vodka and listened to the talk show host dragging out the topic unnecessarily.

She listened to a neighbour mowing a dead lawn and grinned at the television.

* * *

_Lamer than lame, I know. Thanks for reading!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Bodies** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

She'd gotten her driver's license, and now she needed to get away. It wasn't that she wanted to leave the boy – her_ father_, no, William – but she needed space, and difference. (In her mind, he was still her father.)

But they'd be going together.

The first night, they slept in the car. The night after, they took out a caravan in a caravan park. Sometimes, when there wasn't a caravan park, they'd take a room in a motel or hotel.

One of the motels had a swimming pool, and Tiki snuck out after William had gotten off to sleep and sat on the edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the water. She thought of Miyuki, who'd since passed on, and her real parents, and then she thought of Melody and Teddy.

Sometimes, Melody had come to see her, before she'd moved to Oregon, but Teddy had stayed away.

Tiki wondered, if, when she got back, she'd try to make it up with Kristanna. They'd been best friends, and, if she was honest, Tiki missed her a little bit.

* * *

It was in Atlanta that it happened, that Tiki met Jarod, her real father. Well, not met, but glimpsed, and she swore that he saw her, too.

She was just down at the supermarket, and apparently he was, too.

But then he'd left, and she hadn't realised who he was until later.

Crap! Oh, crap!

Her dad!

She felt panicked, as though she was a rabbit, or hare, about to be shot, or a deer, as the cliché went, stuck in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle moving at too great a speed to stop before the two came crashing together.

Should she run back? She didn't know. Should she make it back to the motel and tell William? She didn't know what to do. She felt like maybe she was being pulled in half from either side, and that, like the _Titanic_, she'd just break in two.

She walked back to the motel, her thongs slapping on the road in time to her paces.

She couldn't really tell William, could she? He'd be upset, and… and there was something else, something that niggled at the back of her mind… something she couldn't quite remember, but knew all the same.

And then it came back, and whacked her about with full force. Kristanna's words: "God, tell me he didn't kidnap you from your real parents!" And Melody's words, from all those years ago: "Where'd you snatch this one from, then?" And William, who couldn't be any more upset by the younger woman's angry words than if she'd just produced a gun and shot him, replying: "Tiki is my daughter."

Except, she wasn't.

Her dad was a good man – not William – who would have looked after her much better, and her mom, she didn't even know what to think about her mom anymore. She didn't think it could be true anymore, that her mom had left William for another man, who just happened to be her _real_ father, and, in his anger, William had stolen her from them, but they'd never come looking for her, and they'd never, for one infinitesimal second, suspected her mother's ex-husband.

They would have suspected, if they'd cared.

So maybe they hadn't cared.

She remembered the man – Jarod's – brown eyes, so much like her own brown eyes, and felt herself winding up, like one of those old, old toys, and the tears starting to build.

Her own parents hadn't wanted her, because they'd just let someone kidnap her and they'd never come back for her!

It was too much.

She ran.

* * *

After quite a bit of vodka, William attempted an explanation. Jarod had been stolen from his parents as a child, but he'd not stolen Tiki from anyone; he'd adopted her.

Jarod, her father, and her mother, Nia, had given her up at birth. They'd been too afraid that she would be taken, like he had been, and they'd thought that by giving her anonymity and obscurity that they'd be protecting her, but it hadn't worked that way.

Teddy had found her before anyone else could – Teddy was good at that, finding things, finding people – and William had decided that the best way to keep her safe would be to adopt her, so that way no one would suspect there was anything different about her.

But there was, just like there was with her father, Jarod.

That was why he'd been taken.

Because they company that he, William, had worked for, took children like Jarod, and even though the company didn't exist anymore, now, Jarod hadn't known how soon it would be before the end.

There was no way he could risk his daughter's life like that, or the life of Nia's daughter.

Melody, her friend, had been, for lack of a better word, pursuing Jarod. The company wanted her to bring Jarod back in. And for all of Teddy's abilities at finding things, he'd proven himself understatedly bad at finding Jarod.

But Jarod also wanted to find _his_ family, and, in the past, the company had had no trouble in finding them, though Jarod had drawn up whole years of blanks and dead leads.

He could not keep Kitty, as much as he would want to, and Nia had agreed that it would be for the best.

But now that she was older, and the company wasn't around anymore, yes, it seemed perfectly fine. She could approach Jarod and talk to him, if she wanted, as long as, he asked, that she keep him out of the conversation.

He hadn't been very nice to Jarod whilst he'd been in the care of the company, he hadn't been very nice to him, at all, and he'd been put in charge of Jarod's younger brother, Kyle, who'd later died. But that was a story for another time, and it was more Jarod and Lyle's story than it was his. And, like the company, Lyle didn't exist anymore.

Tiki didn't interrupt as he spoke, she sat and listened. Then she asked, "Teddy made my father's brother go away?"

William gave a shake of his head. "Teddy is newer than Lyle, Lyle was before Teddy's time."

"Another personality?"

Her answer was a simple nod.

She didn't know if she should hate William or Teddy, or if she should feel angry at Jarod, so she switched on the television and watched cartoons.

She needed time to think.

"Why did they take my father?" she asked eventually.

"To make money for themselves," William replied.

On the television, a cartoon character busted down a door with one kick.

Tiki didn't cry, she didn't feel like busting anything, she just felt empty, and cold.


End file.
